] 22 Singular arithmetical Powers of a Child. 



nature, respecting the roots and powers of very high num- 

 bers, were proposed bv several ot tlie gentlemen present, to 

 all of which he answered in a similar manner. One of the 

 party requested him to name the Jac/or.s which produced 

 the number 247463, which he iminediately did hy men- 

 tioning the two numbers 941 and 263; which indeed are the 

 only two numbers that will produce it. Another of ihem 

 proposed 17J395, and he named the following factors 

 as the only ones that would produce it; viz. 5x34279, 

 7X24485, '59x2905, 83X2065, 35 x4 897, 295X581, and 

 413X413. He was then asked to give the factors of 

 36083; but he immediatelv replied that it had none; which 

 in fact was the case, as 36083 is a prime number. Other 

 numbers were indiscriminately proposed to him, and he 

 always succeeded in giving the correct factors, except in 

 the case of prime nuniDers, v^hich he discovered almost as 

 soon as proposed. One of the gentlemen asked him how 

 many minntes there were in forty-eight years ; and before 

 the question could be written down he replied 25,228,800; 

 and instantly added, that the number o^ seconds in the same 

 period was l,5la,728,000. Various questions of the like 

 Kind were put to him ; and to all of them he answered 

 with nearly equal facility and promptitude; so as to asto- 

 nish every one present, and to excite a desire that so ex- 

 traordinary a faculty should (if possible) be rendered more 

 extensive and useful. 



It was the wi^h of the gentlemen present to obtain a 

 knowledge of the method by which the child was enai>led 

 to answer, with so much facility and correctness, the 

 questions thus put to him; but to all their inquiries upon 

 this subject (and he was closely examined upon this point) 

 he was unable to give them any information. He positively 

 declared (and everv observation that was made seemed to 

 justify the assertion) that he did not know how the answers 

 came into his mind. In the act of multiplying two num- 

 bers together, :md in the raising of powers, it was evident 

 (not only from the motion of his lips, but also from some 

 singular facts which will be hereafter mentioned,) that some 

 operation was going forward in his mind ; vet that opera- 

 iion could not (from the readiness with which the answers 

 were furnished) be at all allied to the usual mode of pro- 

 ceedmg with such sulijects : and moreover, he is entirely 

 ignorant of the common rules of arithmetic, and cannot 

 perform, upon paper, a simple sum in multiplicaiion or 

 division. But, in the extraction of roots and m n)ention- 

 ing the factors of high numbers it does not appe£ir that any 



operation 



